Vanquished
by Kudz
Summary: What might have been going through Utena's head when she looked back at Touga after their last duel. Ep 36 spoilers. Chapter 2 now up, with Touga's point of view - ask, and ye shall receive. ;)
1. Utena

Vanquished  
A Shoujo Kakumei Utena fanfiction by Kudz  
  
You made me very angry when you offered your deal, sempai. I couldn't refuse, and you knew   
that well. And now I've won, completely. Won the duel, won the Rose Bride, won the power to  
revolutionize the world-whatever that means. I don't really care about any of that, but it's more  
or less beside the point. I've beaten you; one would think that would be the end of it.  
  
But it really isn't.  
  
You've hurt me very much, sempai. And not only that-by possessing the power to hurt me, you've  
proved me a fool. Again.  
  
I believed you when we spoke that last night in the Duelling Arena, you see. But it goes even  
beyond that. When you showed up at my door and asked me to accompany you, I knew what was coming.  
I sensed, somehow, that the tension between us would be resolved and our relationship would be  
clarified. And it relieved me, because whatever happened, at least then I would know where we   
stood.  
  
And so I followed you to the Arena quietly. I made only a token protest when you spoke about   
me, about us, instead of End of the World. And I listened as you spouted your lines and knelt  
to kiss my hand. And no doubt the things you said have been said a million other times by a   
million other insincere lovers, but I was completely taken in. I leaned against your shoulder and  
let you put your arm around me, and for the first time since coming to Ohtori, I was simply   
content. I felt secure, safe, but most of all-*loved*.  
  
Then, the next day, I found out the real reason for your declaration.  
  
And it all came crashing down, just as it did after our first duel. It seems so long ago, now;  
but still, not so much time has passed between then and now that I should have forgotten how you  
played with my emotions, my beliefs, in order to win.  
  
Did you really think my memory would be so short? No, I think you were just assuming that I   
would, once again, act the fool. And you were right.  
  
Don't come after me, sempai- but no, not sempai. The respect you were due, the respect I still   
gave you, even after seeing how coldly you manipulated me the first time...you no longer deserve   
it. I will give you your name, nothing else. May my words echo for you every day of the rest of  
your life; may they cut you as deeply as they do me.  
  
For I am still a fool. I still think back to what I know of you, hoping in vain to find some  
redeeming quality, some proof that I was more to you than an incidental conquest. I still sigh   
when I remember the warmth of your arm around me, or shiver thinking of the way you whispered in  
my ear. And no doubt years from now, in an unfamiliar city, I will catch a glimpse of fiery red  
hair in my peripheral vision and whirl around, though I'll already know it isn't you.  
  
And so now I say goodbye to you. I am thrice the fool for wishing you happiness...I wish I   
could say that I hated you, that I wished you dead, but I will not lie, even to one who has lied  
to me so many times. I wish I felt anger toward you- I know it is justified- but all I feel is   
emptiness. Emptiness and pain.  
  
Fare well, Kiryuu Touga. I wish you happiness in whatever you do.  
  
And hate myself for doing so. 


	2. Touga

Vanquished, Chapter Two  
A Shoujo Kakumei Utena fanfiction by Kudz  
  
"...It's now clear that she's someone very important to me. In order to save her, I'll beat her."  
  
I gambled and I lost. I was wrong to trust in my skill, wrong to Duel you, wrong to make the deal,  
and most of all, wrong to allow my emotions free rein. Wrong to love you.   
  
Foolish of me, in the end, to hope that you would understand. You understood too well, or so you   
thought. But you understood wrong. I may be the biggest playboy in Ohtori, the most manipulative,  
the least caring as to whose heart I break. But to you I would not, could not, lie.  
  
I know you, Utena. Your nobility does shine upon many, as does your beauty. And you think you know  
me, you think that the second of these attributes must be the only one to move me. How astonished  
you would be, were you to know that it is the first that I find so compelling.   
  
You believe that my offer was a reflection of my true nature. You believe the words which poured  
from me the night before were lies, tools of seduction. You will never believe the truth, which is  
the opposite. Utena, I do love you, I do cherish you. The memory of that evening is the only   
bright spot I cling to, now. But I had to set those terms for our last duel, don't you see? If I  
had come to you freely, offered to Duel you one last time, and never again, you would not have   
understood. You would have backed away, sensed some trick. You would have gone to the Duputy   
Chairman once more, and been truly lost.   
  
So I had to do it. I know that, although you continue to hope for some redeeming factor in me, in  
reality you view me as nothing more than the hedonistic womanizer I often appear to be. And what  
more would that Touga want, than the opportunity to claim for his own the woman he had once   
before tried and failed to win?  
  
I know you, and you think you know me. And thus comes the indictment. I can only imagine how the  
deal must have hurt you, how you must have hated me. But you now knew, or thought you knew, why I  
had spoken so earnestly, that night in the Arena. After all...I had done it before.  
  
And now you hate me. I could see it in your eyes as you bid me farewell, hear it in your voice.  
But I lay here still, desperately running through the situation, frantically trying to find some   
way of convincing you of your danger, hopelessly thinking, wishing, praying...loving.  
  
Desperate, frantic, hopeless, wishful. Rarely have those words been applied to the suave, knowing  
Seitokaichou. And yet, as I lay here, my best friend finally having left me to my gloom, no words  
seem more appropriate.  
  
How hard it must be for your giving nature to wholly condemn someone...but I have given you more  
than enough reason. No doubt now you see yourself as a fool, to be taken in again and   
again by the same ploy; a fool to still wish that I had been sincere. How ironic it is, then, that  
I was.  
  
No, my princess, I was and am the fool. You have left victorious, with a thorny rose as your   
reward, and I...  
  
Still I lay here, hurting, thinking of you, calling out to you, though it seems doubtful that you  
will hear me, and impossible that you heed me. But I will lay here, regardless, for as long as I   
can. For as long as I stay here, you will remain in my mind, and I will be able to call your  
features, your voice, your scent to memory. While I lay here, I can forget that soon will come  
the Duel called Revolution, and soon after that - nothing. A normal life...but one without you.  
  
Hopeless, I called myself. Perhaps that is not wholly accurate. Perhaps I can still cling to the   
hope that, someday...far from here, I will stop in whatever I am doing.  
  
Close my eyes.  
  
Hold my breath.  
  
And, without knowing why, whisper a plaintive question before returning to my life.  
  
As long as I hold onto that hope, I will not even need these memories of you which I so cherish  
now. As long as I am changed by you...  
  
"Is there no way I can be your Prince?" 


End file.
